Collab fic: The Return - H/D (next part in the Six Days at the Villa verse) (original) (raw)
Title: The Return
Authors: Ru and Fru
Pairings: H/D
Rating: R (sex and flangst)
Betas: 
saladbats, darkasphodel and fireelemental79 Thank you!
Disclaimer: Characters are so not belonging to us. Damn it all.
Summary: I fought the urge to crumple the letter in my fist. It might as well
have been from me. To me it was a setback, a problem to be overcome,
but to him? To him it was my farewell.
Universe and chapter listing: Links to all chapters (It would help to read these for this new part to make sense.)
Notes: Again, Ru has let me dive into this wonderful universe with her and I am truly thankful and feeling like the luckiest gal in fandom. It is a rare treat to find someone who is so gracious and fun to work with. *loves*
So, from the two of us, we hope you enjoy this offering, and yes, there will be more!
Telephone poles whipped past, too thin to block the sunlight; scenery washed by in greens and golds. The glass of the train’s window felt cold against my palm, the heat of the countryside locked outside under the blaze. Hills rolled across my vision like serpentine humps moving through a sea of tan grass.
I turned to watch the shadows play over his eyelids. He slept with his lips parted, hair drifting across his forehead. One hand curled around his armrest. He was not touching me, and I wondered if maybe it was intentional.
~*~
“You should go.” He spoke softly as he poured the coffee. I stubbornly kept my eyes on his bare toes, the sunbeam on the floor just short of touching them.
“I’m staying. I promised you,” I answered, glancing at the scattered pages of the letter.
He returned the coffee pot to the counter, and then made his way back to me, sighing. I closed my eyes when I felt his warm fingers brush along the tops of my shoulders. “Harry, promises made in the throes of passion…”
“I meant every word,” I said, firmly, wishing he’d drop the subject. “Don’t you remember how they treated you?” I clenched my jaw and stared into my cooling coffee. He lowered himself to his knees, waiting until I met his eyes.
“I know, but people are dying.”
I opened my mouth, but found I could not argue it. His eyes were so gray, flecked with black. His face looked tight. Resigned. It left a sour taste on my tongue.
“I’m not leaving you here,” I said, and my voice was flatter than I’d tried for. But it told me more about how serious I was than I had been able to tell myself. I rose, taking my coffee cup with me, and left the room. He said my name once, but I kept moving through the living room, opening the door to the veranda. Once outside, I leaned on the railing and closed my eyes. The steady breeze teased my hair and left my skin cool.
~*~
The shadows from outside the train flickered so fast my eyes could not follow their path over his features. I reached out to brush the hair away from his face as he slept, but stopped myself before making contact. It had been a long day and I didn’t want to wake him. I pulled my hand back and slouched against my seat. Someone in the next compartment was smoking a cigar, the rich aroma taking my mind back to Italy, back to the vineyard workers near the villa, back before that damned letter.
Back to when I wasn’t afraid to touch him.
I wanted the tension gone, wanted to take back the bitter words that were never meant for him, the words I wanted to throw at the closed-minded bigots who had forced him away the first time. Less than a year together, and already the Ministry was a sore spot between us. I was starting to think we’d never be free.
He murmured next to me and shifted. It was easy to watch him sleep, had been from the day he’d first arrived. It had only been for a second, but I could remember the sigh he gave as he let himself down onto the guest bed that day. I didn’t think I’d ever heard a sound like that.
I stared at the letter in my hands, turning it over and over. The words were little black spiders crawling across the parchment. Poisonous. He hadn’t even read the letter when I handed it to him. Just glanced at it and nudged it aside with his fingertips. I was glad, in a way. To him it might have just been a piece of paper. But to me it was a thing, reminding him of what he tried to leave behind, and failed.
I hated it.
The light from outside traveled over his features and he frowned in his sleep. His lips parted and a word issued from them. My name.
I wondered if I was wrong. Maybe to him it wasn’t just a piece of paper. Suddenly the letter looked like it belonged in my hands, as if I had been the one holding the quill to write it.
As if I had been the one to condemn him.
For the thousandth time, I fought the urge to crumple the letter in my fist. It might as well have been from me. To me it was a setback, a problem to be overcome, but to him? To him it was my farewell.
~*~
He followed me out to the veranda. I moved to the opposite end and stared off over the rows of vines like a spoilt child. When his arms came around I allowed it, but remained still.
“They let you go on a nice, long holiday, Harry. That’s all it was,” he said softly, resting his chin on my shoulder. ”You had to know they’d come calling the moment they stumbled into something they couldn’t control.” He wasn’t being very subtle with his distraction. Even as his words were causing my mood to frost over, his hands were rubbing slow circles over my chest and stomach, making me want to focus only on his touch, his scent. My hand moved on its own to join with one of his. Our fingers locked together.
“As much as I hate to admit it,” Draco sighed, “your name, face, scar…they believe it all belongs to them.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
“So take back your life, Harry, and go, but not for them. Rush in and save some good people.”
“Until the next time.”
“You can’t hide here with me forever.”
I dropped his hand and tried to move out of his grasp. “I’m not hiding!”
He backed up a step, and blinked. “But you’re running, I know you are.”
I headed for the doors, done with being accused.
“Wait. Harry, I didn’t mean—”
The doors flew open. “I need to think!”
The glass shattered behind me. I refused to turn around.
~*~
I walked down the road until a taxi sent a wave of dust into my eyes and hair. The sun burned at my back and the air smelled cleaner than it should have in the heat of summer. There were mirages rising off the road in the distance, but my thoughts would not go anywhere but behind me.
The hours slid by like the tide, pulling itself out to sea. Rich sunlight on the fields, brightening into midday, then lowering into dusk; it brought his hair to my mind, the different colors it became throughout the day. White gold, burnished a near red by the light. I trailed my fingers through the wheat on the roadside and it was not as soft as his hair.
His words beat a tattoo in my brain until I could no longer see around them. All I could hear was his conviction.
I bit my lip hard enough to make it bleed, but then the thought of what had prompted the letter pushed everything else away. I had to stop and breathe more than once.
The villa was dark when I returned. I could smell the sweet spice of what he’d eaten for dinner from the kitchen. The night breeze coaxed the chimes into a muffled jingle through the closed windows. I climbed the stairs, recalling every creak.
He was asleep, arm curled against his side. My side of the bed looked whitewashed and bare in the moonlight. He seemed to shy away from it, the sheets falling over his shoulders in soft waves. I swallowed.
I lifted the sheet and climbed into bed, settling myself against his body. The thin covering had managed to trap his body heat and it rose against me. He stirred and I kissed him on the mouth.
Grey eyes opened, bleary. “Harry?”
I shook my head and nudged him onto his back. He blinked and rubbed a hand over his face. I kissed him again and his breathing hitched. “Harry, what are you—”
“I’m not hiding.”
He frowned and I could see he wasn’t fully awake. “I—”
“I don’t want you to think of me like that,” I said against his mouth. He shook his head, touched my arm. I stroked down his side and he shuddered. His body was rising to my touches, but still he looked at me. I threaded fingers through his hair and it was more perfect than any wheat. “You were right, but not about that.”
His face flinched as if I’d struck him. He swallowed and his expression cleared, but it was burned into my mind. He spoke and his voice was much too calm. “Then you should go.”
I kissed his cheeks, let my hand drift lower, and he arched. His fingernails burned against my back. “You want me to go?”
His eyes flickered shut, but then he was looking past me, over my shoulder. He nodded. I frowned. Moved my body against him. “Draco--” His jaw clenched and before I knew it, his head was shaking.
“Don’t ask me that, Harry.”
“Draco, what do you want?” His body was growing slick, moving against mine on its own. He kissed at my mouth, trying for silence, but I pulled back and his face looked so injured I caught my breath.
“Draco.” I touched his cheek and he turned his head away.
“Don’t, Harry, please don’t.”
“Draco, tell me what you—”
“I don’t want you to go!” It burst out in a gasp and he shut his eyes and thrust upward. “Oh gods, I don’t want you to l-leave me—” His voice caught and I saw a tear slide from beneath a closed eyelid. His face twisted. One pale hand climbed to cover his face and he went limp in my grasp.
I stared down at him in the painful silence.
I lifted my arm to touch him, but he saw my intention through the space between his fingers. He rolled away from me without a word and tugged at the damp cotton sheet. My heart ached as I watched a shudder roll across his shoulders, ashamed to know that I was the cause.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered, trailing my unsteady fingers across his shoulder blades. He shivered, but didn't pull away further.
"Did you hear what you wanted?" he said weakly into the shadows.
"Draco—" I moved forward and brushed my lips against the freckled curve of his shoulder. He uncovered his face and sent a guarded glance in my direction. The moonlight in his wet eyes took my breath away. I pressed in behind him. "Believe me, you're the real reason I don't want to go. Leaving you is the last thing I want."
He reached back for my hand and pulled it around him.
"People are in danger, Harry, and I want to keep you here with me. Hardly a noble gesture." His thumb rubbed slowly against mine. I nudged my face into his hair and took a deep breath.
"Then we'll both go."
He turned in my arms and stared with wide eyes.
"What did you say?"
My fingers moved under his chin as I lowered my mouth to his for a brief kiss.
"Come with me."
~*~
“Harry?”
I looked away from the window. His eyes were open, hazed with sleep. He curled in his seat, angled toward me, but I immediately saw the space between us.
I touched his temple with one finger. “Did you sleep well?”
He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “As well as can be expected.”
I nodded and held out one hand. His eyes fell to it. A quiet breath. Then he leaned closer, settling his side against mine. His body felt sleep-warmed. I closed my eyes and breathed.
“How long until we transfer?” he asked.
I rested my cheek on the soft tow of his hair and stared at the deepening twilight. Purples and blues, so unlike the burnished skies in the Florentine. “Three hours, at least.”
He shifted and his weight grew heavier at my side. “Harry.”
“Hmm.”
“When we arrive…” He stopped and I pulled back to look at him. A shadow flickered in his irises and for an instant I thought I was looking at someone else.
“What?”
He shrugged, turned his gaze away. “Just… I don’t know if I—”
I touched his face, suddenly eager for that shadow to be gone. It was familiar, old. Discomfiting. “Draco?”
His eyes closed and he rested his cheek on my shoulder. A tiny shiver went through his limbs. “It doesn’t matter.”
"Please tell me?" I watched my thumb make a slow path over his eyelids. He turned into my touch but stayed silent for a few more moments. I waited. It was all I could do.
When he finally sat up straight and open his eyes, I cursed myself for the sadness I saw just under the half-smile. He laced his fingers with mine and took a deep breath.
"My last day at the Ministry when--well you were there, you saw what happened."
I nodded, wondering where this conversation was leading. "But I'll be with…" I started, but he raised his hand and continued.
"They're going to see you, Harry, with me, and then the whole world will know by morning that you and I are…" He paused for a breath, running fingers through his hair quickly. "It's going to make your job harder, throw you back into the spotlight you hate, and possibly put you in more danger than you would be in if you showed up alone."
"I don't care about that, as long as…"
"No, Harry. This is what I'm trying to say." He rubbed at his forehead. "It's not going to be like what we had at the villa," he said slowly, staring through me.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying we should keep our relationship a secret, just make up some other explanation of why you and I are traveling together, and decide on why you would want me on your team for this mission."
I looked at the man I loved, but no longer recognized. He was waiting for my response, waiting for me to agree to his plan, but I couldn't form the words. My jaw ached and something in my chest was closing around my lungs.
His face softened as he watched me. In the next moment, his cool palms were cupping my cheeks.
"I'll still be yours, Harry. I still love you, but this is the best way to protect what we have."
The words still wouldn't come. My heart ached to tell him how wrong he was.
"Do you trust me?" Draco asked, pulling me in for a brush of a kiss.
I nodded, my heart breaking with the silent admission.
He gave me a warm smile, dropped his hands from my face, and curled up against me like he had done earlier. Two tears that I couldn't hold back melted instantly into his soft hair. Silence fell between us, lasting until the sharp whistle signaled our arrival to the station.